The Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) — which is not just for teachers — is $20 billion in debt. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

By Wes O’DellColorado Voices

The so-called “education finance reform” proposal to be put on the next election ballot by the Colorado General Assembly is a familiar bait-and-switch. Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, in an article published in the Colorado Springs Gazette on May 30, says as much, though in more delicate language. The Gazette’s editorial board reiterated that conclusion, again, more delicately.

In the 30 years I have had the pleasure of living in our beautiful state, I have seen this tactic by legislators any time they want to skim money from taxpayers to pay for something they know has not a snowball’s chance in hell of passing if they tell us where the money is really going. This is the reason TABOR passed, it is the reason legislators hate TABOR, and it is the reason why taxpayers must never allow TABOR to be subverted.

The fact is, this proposed billion-dollar tax increase has nothing to do with better education opportunities or outcomes “for the children.” It is all about bailing out a bankrupt and unsustainable Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA). PERA is $20 billion in debt. The PERA management claims its portfolio will cover the debt. No one with any knowledge of economics agrees.

Their unrealistic expectations will cost Colorado taxpayers billions of dollars in bailouts under the current plan. Colorado taxpayers are responsible for more than 20 percent of public employee salaries for their pension plan.

There is not a private retirement plan anywhere that requires employers to shell out nearly the percentage of employee’s retirement contributions that PERA requires of Colorado’s taxpayers. This is true not only of Colorado. Many states, most notably California, are facing bankruptcy, in large part as a result of the public employee’s retirement systems in those states. The taxpayers of Colorado have the opportunity to contain it here.

The elephant in the room is the fact that that PERA is not just for educators. The same legislators who govern PERA and its funding mechanism are also PERA recipients. They are not inclined to change the current failing system to one that does not continue to milk taxpayers for ever-increasing subsidies because that would require higher employee contributions, which must come out of employees’ (legislators’) paychecks. There is no likelihood that they will willingly reduce their take home pay to benefit taxpayers.

When this ballot proposal is written and presented to Colorado voters, it must include serious reform of the current PERA funding mechanism. If it does not, voters must reject it.

There may have been a time when “public service” really meant serving the public. With the more recent advent of the threat of public employees resorting to labor strikes, setting up confrontations between themselves and taxpayers, public service has become just another job. If public employees find that unacceptable, they must understand that they are not a special class deserving of a taxpayer-subsidized retirement that taxpayers themselves may only dream of.

If you can do better with your education and skills doing something else, do so. My guess is that for every one who chooses to, there will be others ready, willing, and able to take their place, not unlike those of us in the private workforce.

Wes O’Dell (stratpikr@gmail) is a semi-retired remodel designer/contractor in Colorado Springs. Colorado Voices is an annual competition among writers vying for the opportunity to publish columns of regional interest in The Denver Post.